Hello WAMUGers
My Wife works in the mining industry and needs wireless broadband.
She has a 17" MacBook Pro 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo/2GB/256MB VRAM 2GB
SDRAM. With OS 10.4.9.
We recently tried out a Bigpond Next G, wireless broadband USB mobile
card, recommended by a Fonezone shop (Plan name: BigPond Wireless
Super G Fast 20Hrs - Mobile). The management software that came in
the box didn't even show the USB mobile card as an option on it's
list of devices. After loading the latest recommended Beta
connection manager, from BigPond, we were able to go on line up until
we completed registration. After that we were unable to go on line to
anywhere other than the start of the BigPond registration page.
A Bigpond representative who was very helpful and knowledgeable about
Apple, spent an hour and a half on the phone with me to try to get it
going. We found and reported a few bugs in their beta software (which
they advertise will probably be the case). But in the end we
established that the Mac beta software would only let us go to the
Bigpond registration site and no further until the software is
developed further. This may take some time. So we sent the device
back for a credit. The devices have dropped in price by $50 in the
last few days, which may be telling us something.
For what it's worth, apparently Vista users have similar problems and
can only make the wireless broadband work after a 20 minute phone
call to BigPond. Thats why it takes so looong to get through to
BigPond tech help at the moment.
The MacBook pro has no built in modem so we are now in a situation
where my wife has no internet connection at all. All the PC people
think this is a great joke. She has just spent over four grand on the
latest and greatest and can't even send an email. We could buy an
external modem but that is just one more bit of gear to carry on the
plane and probably has a multitude of cables and wall warts to go
with it. Plus the idea is to be able to use the machine on a mine
site without the need for a phone line or 240V access if possible.
She has a Sony Erickson 750i phone which may be able to be used
somehow, but before spending another day and a half on fruitless
phone calls, I thought we would ask the group for some wisdom and
guidance please.
Regards
Greg Manzie
Director
Glyde Gallery Conservation
Conservators, Consultants and Picture Framers
for Museums, Art Galleries and Collectors
5 Glyde Street
Mosman Park
Western Australia 6012
ABN 89 154 124 265
Phone (08) 9383 3929
Mobile 0448 844 381
0438 833 144
Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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